How did you find out about PO?

Michelle · Post by **Michelle** » 08 Jan 2008, 18:06

I'm Michelle, I live in Georgia. (Think Gone With The Wind.)

I discovered PO in Dec of 05. It's been a tumultuous 2 years.
I've planted fruit bearing trees and bushes.
I'm trying my hand at sheep farming.
I've had some luck with chickens and winter gardening.

I'm all about food, I need to loose a stone because of all
my adventures in baking. (Just trying for some self- sufficiency.)

I'm married to a survivalist type hubby and I have 2 fiesty
daughters.
Cheers,

Michelle

P.s. HI Haggis . . .

Mean Mr Mustard · Post by **Mean Mr Mustard** » 08 Jan 2008, 19:37

Hi Michelle

Welcome to Powerswitch. Think I've read you over at LATOC? I used to lurk over there, posted briefly....

RGR · Post by **RGR** » 09 Jan 2008, 00:37

Michelle wrote:
I discovered PO in Dec of 05. It's been a tumultuous 2 years.

eatyourveg · Post by **eatyourveg** » 09 Jan 2008, 01:14

Two more Americans. Crikey. Hi.
You will find the attitude on Powerswitch a little less, erm, frontier shall we say, than some American sites.

RGR · Post by **RGR** » 09 Jan 2008, 02:15

greg wrote:Two more Americans. Crikey. Hi.
You will find the attitude on Powerswitch a little less, erm, frontier shall we say, than some American sites.

FRONTIER!!

syberberg · Post by **syberberg** » 09 Jan 2008, 02:24

RGR wrote:
Michelle wrote:
I discovered PO in Dec of 05. It's been a tumultuous 2 years.
I discovered PO when a fellow scientist came into a meeting around Thanksgiving, 2005, and declared the world was ending because peak oil had happened.

This led to a rapid investigation of all available information to see exactly how bad it was going to be.

2+ years after the event, I guess we are all familiar with earth shattering consequences, those of us who aren't starving in the streets, staying away from the nuclear fallout zones and living in permanent blackouts.

Hello RGR, I remember you from the LATOC forums. The same with you Michelle.

For those who've not ventured over to the LATOC Forums, RGR somehow managed to get himself banned. I honestly don't know why or what led up to it as I was taking a break from All Things Doomerish TM and completely missed the whole thing.

Michelle is one of the Global Moderators over at the LATOC Forums.

RGR · Post by **RGR** » 09 Jan 2008, 03:16

[quote="syberberg"]

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 09 Jan 2008, 08:50

Hello RGR,

In all the hubbub of certain other fora, I never quite pinned down your core opinions, concerns etc on PO.

Can you precis it in a few sentences for the people here?

Many thanks!

syberberg · Post by **syberberg** » 09 Jan 2008, 09:48

RGR wrote:
syberberg wrote:
For those who've not ventured over to the LATOC Forums, RGR somehow managed to get himself banned. I honestly don't know why or what led up to it as I was taking a break from All Things Doomerish TM and completely missed the whole thing.

Knowledge within the subject matter, experience within the industry in question and the ability to think the least bit critically isn't appreciated in certain quarters.

Nice to see you again as well.

It certainly is, I hardly ever venture over to LATOC anymore and post even less.

Eternal Sunshine · Post by **Eternal Sunshine** » 09 Jan 2008, 15:12

Hello & welcome Michelle & RGR

Vortex wrote:Hello RGR,

In all the hubbub of certain other fora, I never quite pinned down your core opinions, concerns etc on PO.

Can you precis it in a few sentences for the people here?

Many thanks!

Wow you lot are a bit hard on new people! Whatever happened to a simple "hello"?

Do we all have to state our beliefs as soon as we register?

Adam1 · Post by **Adam1** » 09 Jan 2008, 15:20

Centurian Vortex

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 09 Jan 2008, 15:29

Do we all have to state our beliefs as soon as we register?

RGR is famed in the PO world!

I just wanted to know what his core beliefs were, as he is usually in the depths of whirling technical arguments, where it's hard to tell what people's basic positions are.

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 10 Jan 2008, 08:50

Thanks RGR!

Post by **jmb** » 19 Jan 2008, 16:56

I've just realised I've never posted an introduction here...

In March 2006 a friend of mine sent me a link to Dave Eriqat's The End Of Civilization, which made interesting reading but somehow I didn't extract from that quite how pressing the situation was...

In April 2006 my fianc?e, now wife, Shira sent me a link to lifeaftertheoilcrash.net, and found Powerswitch the next month (UK Government says Peak Oil cannot be disputed). She's been instrumental in pushing me to think about the issues.

We did a lot of reading but only joined the forum in March 2007. Since then we've been to a few meetings (PeakSpeak, and APPGOPO) and I've been helping out with some site administration, including helping to fix up the website after a couple of hacks got us shut down, and recently some site optimisations to try to help reduce costs and improve performance.

We have a good idea of what we'd like to do to safeguard our own future, but our plans are made non-viable by a lack of money. Shira is disabled (but in ways that are not recognised by the DWP) and rather dependent on the oil-fuelled pharmaceuticals industry, which gives us rather a bleak outlook on the situation.

I'm a software engineer, so my career future post-Peak is, mmmm, likely to see some changes. My best bet is probably turning to low-tech engineering, off-grid energy systems etc, though I really don't know how to go about it - I have no time or money for re-training or learning.

James Beckett
I frequently sign myself as "jmb", which should help avoid confusion with PowerSwitchJames ...

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 19 Jan 2008, 17:25

I have quite a similar CV - however I believe that

low-tech engineering

is not necessarily the right way to go.

Why not make the most of our technology to drag us through the coming mess?